


you better watch out, run for cover

by FangedAngel



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-07
Updated: 2011-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-21 03:30:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FangedAngel/pseuds/FangedAngel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames has left his taste on Arthur’s lips, the taste of alcohol and tobbaco, of nightmares and danger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you better watch out, run for cover

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic that I wrote last year (my first A/E). It was actually supposed to have a sequel, but alas.  
> On the dark side, no fluff to be found in this one. And there's bottom!Eames.  
> Inspired by parka_girl prompting me with Freddie Mercury's "I'm gay as a daffodil" quote.

Six months later, Arthur is in another warehouse, staring at the needle piercing Eames' skin, the line connected to the PASIV. They’ve successfully completed their second job after the Fischer inception earlier today, and with Ariadne and Yusuf gone to the airport for their respective flights home, Arthur hadn't expected to find Eames around, asleep, dreaming. There's no need for more training, and Arthur feels mildly irritated at Eames breaking yet another unwritten rule. He's not supposed to be doing this, but here he is. Arthur half-expects him to be grinning in his sleep, but Eames looks oddly serious, for him, a flicker of something on his face.

A restless dream. Arthur sets the papers he's written up in conclusion to their research for the job, an addition to the archives, on the table. It's his usual tradition after every job, being the last one around. Of course Eames has no respect for traditions either.

He makes the decision quickly enough, because he doesn't want to leave Eames here unattended, and he doesn't want to wait around for him. He hooks up to the PASIV and lies back, eyes falling shut.

He's not supposed to be here. It's the first thought that crosses his mind, even before he opens his eyes. He's intruding. This isn't meant for his eyes.

The sky is made of violent purples and blues, a dash of burgundy here and there. The contrast between that and the pale yellow of the hills around him makes him flinch. He sees Eames in the distance and he ducks behind a dying oak tree. He'd expected a club or a casino to be the background of Eames' dreams, not this sort of landscape, be it as far from normal as it may.

There are no projections in sight, not until one of them appears from behind the hill nearest to Eames. Arthur gasps, despite himself, when Eames tangles his fingers in the projection's hair, when the projection's nails dig into Eames' cheeks as they kiss, a kiss as violent as the sky. The projection is completely identical to Arthur, down to the suit the real Arthur has been wearing all day. Eames' attention to detail is known to be extraordinary, after all.

Arthur watches, watches as the two men, one real, one made-up, wrap around each other, clothes disappearing, the projection of him leaving marks, bruises, scratches on Eames' skin, tattoos that are red instead of black. He watches Eames bend over, his hands on the ground, fingers grabbing at the imaginary grass that doesn't break. He watches Eames, his lips shaped around a silent scream. He watches Eames, not his projection, Eames being fucked, viciously, until his knees give way and he falls forward, the projection following him. He watches Eames, hears his moans, hears him beg, hears him swear. He hears the projection laugh, pushing him away the moment it's over.

The laughter dies when the projection realises that there is an intruder, and Arthur freezes when his own eyes glare up at him, when Eames follows the projection's line of sight.

The look in Eames' eyes makes him back off more than the angry projection shaped as himself running straight at him. Eames looks furious, enraged, murderous. He looks hungry, cruel, violent. Words leave his lips, words Arthur doesn't hear because he falls, falls into a river that is blood-red.

He’s running out of the warehouse the moment he wakes up, and he only hears the sound of something smashing against the wall when he’s almost next to his rented car, fumbling with the keys. He’s never been scared of Eames before, but now he doesn’t know whether to expect any sanity. He runs.

~*~

In the safety of his apartment and the restlessness his bed has to offer, he thinks back to last week, when he’d been poring over his notes for the hundredth time, scowling at the voices of Ariadne and Eames. They’d been gossiping, again, about Saito and Cobb and how they were both in LA and seeing a lot of each other, that sort of garbage that Arthur had no time for. He was on his third coffee of the night, his shirt was wrinkled and he wanted nothing more than to sleep and forget all about the traumatic images those voices kept trying to conjure in his mind.

Laughter followed whatever witty thing had come out of Eames’ mouth while Arthur had been too busy blocking him out, and then:

“Ever had a stable girlfriend, Eames?”

A slight pause, a chuckle, the rustle of Ariadne’s scarf (a sound in Arthur’s head).

“A girlfriend? Of course not, my dear. I’m as gay as a daffodil.”

Arthur remembers how blood had rushed to his cheeks, how the notes written in his careful calligraphy had blurred over, how he hadn’t allowed himself to think about the different images those words had conjured in his head, how he’d pretended not to hear, how Yusuf, mixing chemicals at the other desk, had pretended not to have noticed Arthur’s reaction.

He’d had to rip his tie off and put on his spare one after a few moments because the thoughts of Eames, naked and writhing under Arthur’s hands, had nearly suffocated him.

~*~

Arthur wakes up to the sight of Eames sitting on the edge of his bed, a gun in his hand, lips pulling long drags from a cigarette. The whole scene has a dream-like quality to it, between the smoke and the danger. Arthur can taste both of them, as well as the sleep clinging to him. He sits up, Eames’ eyes following the movement lazily, the cigarette allowed to fall onto Arthur’s Persian rug, burning a hole in it before the heel of Eames’ shoe puts it out. Arthur looks at nothing except for Eames and Eames doesn’t look away.

“Tell me what you were doing last night.”

“It was pretty obvious, wasn’t it? I’ve been having trouble. I was trying to solve it.”

Eames’ fingers are toying with the gun, but Arthur doesn’t feel fazed in the least. He can smell alcohol now too, and he wonders where Eames has spent the night. He’s in yesterday’s clothes and they haven’t been improved by the remnants of insomnia.

“What kind of trouble?”

“You’ve been haunting me.”

“Not me, Eames.”

“A version of you, then.”

Silence. Another cigarette is lit, flame and ash and smoke and Eames’ lips.

“Tell me what it meant.”

Eames inhales, exhales, looks away. His hair is dishevelled, falling over his forehead. He’s much too still for Eames, much too quiet, but Arthur knows this is no dream, even as he fingers the die he tucks under his pillow when he sleeps.

“It meant that you have a hold on me, darling. It meant that your never-ending condescension has managed to drive me mad. It meant that I want you. It meant that you haunt me. I’ve already told you this.”

“I don’t want to haunt you. This has nothing to do with me.”

The laughter is bitter, a foreign sound. Arthur reaches out, fingers curling around the wrist of the hand with which Eames is wielding the gun. It falls to the bed, safety on, harmless.

“It has everything to do with you.”

Eames kisses him and Arthur grabs at his shoulders, not pushing him away, not breaking skin. It’s Eames who makes Arthur’s bottom lip bleed, Eames who makes Arthur arch into him, Eames who pushes Arthur away when their lips break apart, Eames who leaves, wordlessly, soundlessly.

He picks the gun up and hides it in the nearest drawer before pressing his fingers to his lips and breathing. Eames has left his taste on Arthur’s lips, the taste of alcohol and tobbaco, of nightmares and danger.


End file.
